Optimistic Burger

@Chiron95p @DrJStrategy So they overthrew him with radical islamists they have no control over? 🤣🤣

@Optimisticbger @DrJStrategy Shah was about to halt the puppet show permanently and that’s what the US didn’t allow.

Food for thought. On November 29, 1971, the world barely noticed when Iranian forces seized three specks of land at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz: Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb. For the UAE and many in the Gulf, this was never a technical border quarrel. It was an act of occupation and a permanent scar. Today, a comfortable consensus has formed in foreign-policy salons and on Wall Street that the Trump administration has no strategic vision for the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran is “winning” the confrontation in the Gulf by default. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is hard to believe how casually many of these critics ignore history, including the way control of financing, insurance, and maritime chokepoints has repeatedly reshaped great-power influence. Half a century after the shah’s grab, the question surrounding these islands is no longer simply “who owns them,” but “who secures the most critical chokepoint in the global oil trade.” With President Trump moving to provide American-backed insurance for ships transiting the Gulf, Washington is displacing the remnants of British dominance in maritime insurance and risk. Whoever insures the traffic does not just collect premiums; they hold a de facto veto over it and gain visibility into every meaningful cargo, what moves, in what volume, from where and to where. This emerging architecture gives the United States something London once enjoyed: an indirect presence in every Gulf port that depends on uninterrupted access to global insurance and reinsurance. The logical next step is geographic as well as financial. Returning Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb to the United Arab Emirates would not only correct a historical wrong against Arab inhabitants whose ties to these islands long predate the shah’s gunboat diplomacy. It would also provide the legal and political foundation for a formal U.S.–UAE security arrangement on the islands themselves. Critics will bristle at the idea of a sustained American military presence on these rocks. But the alternative is not some neutral, demilitarized utopia. The alternative is that the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large share of the world’s seaborne oil flows, remains vulnerable to coercion, sabotage, and blockade. A long-term U.S. presence, at Emirati invitation, would anchor a security order built around free navigation, reliable energy flows, and clear red lines against maritime blackmail. This is not just about three islands. It is about restoring the principle that territory cannot be seized by surprise and held indefinitely by force, and about extending a coherent maritime strategy from Hormuz to the Bab el-Mandeb. If the United States is serious about securing the arteries of global trade for decades to come, then correcting the injustice of 1971 and placing these islands under Emirati sovereignty, with an American flag flying alongside the UAE’s in a carefully structured basing agreement, is not an overreach. IMHO, It is the minimum credible foundation for a stable Gulf and the clearest rebuttal yet to those who insist that America has no plan.

Minister of Finance Riikka Purra sent a grim message to Finns today. The prices of fuel and food will increase significantly. Misery and poverty will rise dramatically in Finland. The worst depression in Finland’s history is just around the corner.

That's awesome, now let automakers build small trucks again.

@PressSec @WhiteHouse Does it have a section on broken promises? x.com/i/status/20136…

Bro's still going yard.

After that whole Barbarossa debacle the Germans really don't have any room to talk.

You ready for Rona 2.0 with a chance of spicy meatballs?

*RUSSIA TO BAN GASOLINE EXPORTS FOR 6 MONTHS STARTING APRIL 1ST

It was a Sig Sauer wasn't it?

Europe is in a real tough spot right now.

Suez is a poor analogy. It was not a military defeat for Britain. This is a dramatically bigger crisis. The choices facing the US now are to accept Iranian hegemony in the gulf or rush headlong into an unwinnable ground war that will destroy what is left of its world position.

@vogeldorf @TheReformRepub1 @Billbrowder The bombs could have been sold on the black market like much of former Soviet weapons in Ukraine were, and the uranium used to make dirty bombs.

@Optimisticbger @TheReformRepub1 @Billbrowder then why were Russia and US that concerned about that nukes back then?🤔

The US signed the Budapest memorandum in 1994 which guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. Ukraine is exactly the US’s war

@vogeldorf @TheReformRepub1 @Billbrowder Ukraine never had the ability to use the nukes anyway. The Russians had all the codes/controls for them.

@TheReformRepub1 @Billbrowder and what has got Ukraine in exchange for giving up their nukes?🤔

At some point, balkanization will be the inevitable outcome of all of this. If you're under 40, it will likely be within your lifetime.

@kekambasballa @FischerKing64 Yeah... like the cheaper oil after the Iraq War. 🙄

@FischerKing64 Cheaper oil when this is over will obviously help retard

If President Trump was going to tank the economy to achieve something big for the people - mass deportations was the option. The disruption to the economy would have been serious, but long run the people would benefit massively. Smashing Iran - doesn’t help a single American.

@BankerWeimar I don’t see the USA having the state or bureaucratic power to even do a draft. The ICE roll out demonstrates this IMO. Plus even today’s lax standards completely exclude vast majority of POCs. I hope they try it and it causes an epic White boy summer.